Ex-minister’s cousins will not appear at parliamentary committee after tax evasion claims
The cousins of ex-Finance Minister Giorgos Papaconstantinou, accused of removing their names from the Lagarde list of depositors, have notified the parliamentary committee investigating the matter that they will not appear before the panel on Tuesday afternoon.
The financial crimes squad (SDOE) on Monday submitted to the committee a report indicating that four of the ex-minister’s relatives on the list had failed to declare more than 6 million euros in income.
The long-awaited report by SDOE concluded that the four relatives of Papaconstantinou had failed to declare a total of 6.3 million euros in assets in recent years.
The ex-minister is being investigated for violation of duty and doctoring a document after prosecutors found that the names of his relatives had been removed from the original Lagarde list, named after the former French finance minister and current International Monetary Fund chief, Christine Lagarde.
The bulk of the assets that are alleged to have been undeclared – some 4.5 million euros – have been connected to bank accounts in the names of Eleni Papaconstantinou, the ex-minister’s first cousin, and that of her husband Symeon Sykiaridis, according to sources.
The remaining amount was traced to the accounts of Marina Papaconstantinou, another cousin of the ex-minister, and her husband Andreas Rossonis.
